1. [BM] 1984
2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. [M] Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Brighton Rock
6. [BM] Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. [BM] A Clockwork Orange
9. Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. [BM]The Day of the Triffids
11. [M] Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [BM] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. [BM] Doctor Zhivago
15. [B] Empire of the Sun
16. [M] The English Patient
17. Fight Club
18. [M] The French Lieutenant’s Woman
19. [M] Get Shorty
20. [M] The Godfather
21. [BM] Goldfinger
22. [M] Goodfellas
23. [M] Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. [BM] The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [BM] Jaws
26. [M] The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. [BM] LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. [M] Lolita
31. [BM] Lord of the Flies
32. [M] The Maltese Falcon
33. [BM] Oliver Twist
34. [BM] One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
35. Orlando
36. [B] The Outsiders
37. [BM] Pride and Prejudice
38. [M] The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. [M] Rebecca
41. [M] The Remains of the Day
42. [M] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
43. Sin City — does the Dark Knight count?
44. [M] The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. [M] The Talented Mr Ripley
46. [BM] Tess of the D’Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. Trainspotting
50. [M] The Vanishing
51. [BM] Watership Down

Yes, they really did include 51. Please don’t ask me why, I’m not a journalist.

Looking at the lists I can find via Mark, nobody has seen or read Brighton Rock or A Kestrel For a Knave. I do think there is a bit of a British bias to these choices as well.

 Here’s an idea I can get behind: The Jayne Mansfield 44 cent stamp. There’s certainly no room to get in front of it.

There once was a young person named Little Red Riding
Hood who lived on the edge of a large forest full of
endangered owls and rare plants that would probably
provide a cure for cancer if only someone took the
time to study them.

Red Riding Hood lived with a nurture giver whom she
sometimes referred to as “mother”, although she didn’t
mean to imply by this term that she would have thought
less of the person if a close biological link did not
in fact exist.

Nor did she intend to denigrate the equal value of
nontraditional households, although she was sorry if
this was the impression conveyed.

One day her mother asked her to take a basket of
organically grown fruit and mineral water to her
grandmother’s house.

“But mother, won’t this be stealing work from the
unionized people who have struggled for years to earn
the right to carry all packages between various people
in the woods?”

Red Riding Hood’s mother assured her that she had
called the union boss and gotten a special
compassionate mission exemption form.

“But mother, aren’t you oppressing me by ordering me
to do this?”

Red Riding Hood’s mother pointed out that it was
impossible for womyn to oppress each other, since all
womyn were equally oppressed until all womyn were
free.

“But mother, then shouldn’t you have my brother carry
the basket, since he’s an oppressor, and should learn
what it’s like to be oppressed?”

And Red Riding Hood’s mother explained that her
brother was attending a special rally for animal
rights, and besides, this wasn’t stereotypical womyn’s
work, but an empowering deed that would help engender
a feeling of community.

“But won’t I be oppressing Grandma, by implying that
she’s sick and hence unable to independently further
her own selfhood?”

But Red Riding Hood’s mother explained that her
grandmother wasn’t actually sick or incapacitated or
mentally handicapped in any way, although that was not
to imply that any of these conditions were inferior to
what some people called “health”.

Thus Red Riding Hood felt that she could get behind
the idea of delivering the basket to her grandmother,
and so she set off.

Many people believed that the forest was a foreboding
and dangerous place, but Red Riding Hood knew that
this was an irrational fear based on cultural
paradigms instilled by a patriarchal society that
regarded the natural world as an exploitable resource,
and hence believed that natural predators were in fact
intolerable competitors.

Other people avoided the woods for fear of thieves and
deviants, but Red Riding Hood felt that in a truly
classless society all marginalized peoples would be
able to “come out” of the woods and be accepted as
valid lifestyle role models.

On her way to Grandma’s house, Red Riding Hood passed
a woodchopper, and wandered off the path, in order to
examine some flowers.

She was startled to find herself standing before a
Wolf, who asked her what was in her basket.

Red Riding Hood’s teacher had warned her never to talk
to strangers, but she was confident in taking control
of her own budding sexuality, and chose to dialogue
with the Wolf.

She replied, “I am taking my Grandmother some
healthful snacks in a gesture of solidarity.”

The Wolf said, “You know, my dear, it isn’t safe for a
little girl to walk through these woods alone.”

Red Riding Hood said, “I find your sexist remark
offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because
of your traditional status as an outcast from society,
the stress of which has caused you to develop an
alternative and yet entirely valid worldview. Now, if
you’ll excuse me, I would prefer to be on my way.”

Red Riding Hood returned to the main path, and
proceeded towards her Grandmother’s house.

But because his status outside society had freed him
from slavish adherence to linear, Western-style
thought, the Wolf knew of a quicker route to Grandma’s
house.

He burst into the house and ate Grandma, a course of
action affirmative of his nature as a predator.

Then, unhampered by rigid, traditionalist gender role
notions, he put on Grandma’s nightclothes, crawled
under the bedclothes, and awaited developments.

Red Riding Hood entered the cottage and said,

“Grandma, I have brought you some cruelty free snacks
to salute you in your role of wise and nurturing
matriarch.”

The Wolf said softly “Come closer, child, so that I
might see you.”

Red Riding Hood said, “Goddess! Grandma, what big eyes
you have!”

“You forget that I am optically challenged.”

“And Grandma, what an enormous, what a fine nose you
have.”

“Naturally, I could have had it fixed to help my
acting career, but I didn’t give in to such societal
pressures, my child.”

“And Grandma, what very big, sharp teeth you have!”

The Wolf could not take any more of these specist
slurs, and, in a reaction appropriate for his
accustomed milieu, he leaped out of bed, grabbed
Little Red Riding Hood, and opened his jaws so wide
that she could see her poor Grandmother cowering in
his belly.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Red Riding Hood
bravely shouted. “You must request my permission
before proceeding to a new level of intimacy!”

The Wolf was so startled by this statement that he
loosened his grasp on her.

At the same time, the woodchopper burst into the
cottage, brandishing an ax.

“Hands off!” cried the woodchopper.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” cried Little Red
Riding Hood. “If I let you help me now, I would be
expressing a lack of confidence in my own abilities,
which would lead to poor self esteem and lower
achievement scores on college entrance exams.”

“Last chance, sister! Get your hands off that
endangered species! This is an FBI sting!” screamed
the woodchopper, and when Little Red Riding Hood
nonetheless made a sudden motion, he sliced off her
head.

“Thank goodness you got here in time,” said the Wolf.
“The brat and her grandmother lured me in here. I
thought I was a goner.”

“No, I think I’m the real victim, here,” said the
woodchopper. “I’ve been dealing with my anger ever
since I saw her picking those protected flowers
earlier. And now I’m going to have such a trauma. Do
you have any aspirin?”

“Sure,” said the Wolf.

“Thanks.”

“I feel your pain,” said the Wolf, and he patted the
woodchopper on his firm, well padded back, gave a
little belch, and said “Do you have any Maalox?”

Yesterday, Opinion Journal’s Best of the Web linked to this article about Saudi Arabia replacing male clerks with female clerks at lingerie shops with a remark about Maureen Dowd.

Maureen Dowd!?! I’m thinking “Lingerie Shops in Saudia Arabia!?!” Isn’t that like a liquor store at a Baptist convention? Or Karaoke night at the Trappist monastery?

This move isn’t a response to Saudi men around women in scanty dress, but a jobs program for women. Next women sales clerks will take over other clothing stores. The government hopes to create 200,000 jobs for women. There must be a lot of lingerie stores to support those kinds of numbers.

Since the female form is so absolutely lust inducing to men that women must go covered head to toe, where exactly do they keep purveyors of lust enhancing clothing? I’d assumed carefully guarded locations, but nope, according to the article, they are “along the streets, central markets and major shopping centers.” They must have the mirrors inside the changing rooms. Or as the song says, Arabian nights, like Arabian days, are hotter than hot, just in much different ways. Know we know the answer to the question, “what comes between me and my Burqa?” isn’t nothing.

Along similar lines, when I was in Pakistan, you could tell the hotel employees who regularly got to work in the pool area where the European stewardesses hung out in their European swimwear from those who didn’t — they were the ones who could actually do what they were there to do. The two guys who came out the change a light bulb one day – they just pretty much stopped and stared and ogled. Finally one of the waiters had to say something to them – it only took half and hour to change a light bulb.

Charles let’s me in one another fun game with google: What you need. Put your name into Google followed by needs and see what turns up. So now you know what Kevin needs:

Kevin needs your money.

Kevin needs a picture.

Kevin needs a haircut.

Kevin needs to cut his nasty hair.

Kevin needs a tan and a haircut.

Kevin needs your help.

Kevin needs your help to save his life.

Kevin needs to post.

Kevin needs daddy skills.

Kevin needs Modular dungeon tiles out of LEGOs

Kevin needs to not let people i don’t know call my house to try and talk to me.

Kevin needs to go home.

Kevin needs to go home next week for sure.

Kevin needs to listen better and not run off to Vegas every time they fight.

Kevin needs two free hands.

Kevin needs expert witnesses, research, and other things that the court is unlikely to provide much financial help for.

Kevin needs to pull up his pants.
So anything on that list I’d be much obliged for. Especially since Wal-Mart hasn’t come through on that HDTV I need.

Forget the Olympics, I won the Gold at the Sine Qua Non Caption Contest. And believe me, the competition was fierce, as I narrowly edged out Lynxx Pherrett who has an even worse case of blog hiatus than Charles and Rodney Dill who is Mr. Caption himself. Just call me Rocky.

It’s not too late to enter Sine Qua Non’s caption contest. Charles is holding them weekly, or until the next time he decides to take a break from blogging.